PAX East: Hands-on with Astroneer

Having covered the calm and laid-back sandbox game Astroneer when it announced its debut out of Early Access, it only made sense to find it upon the PAX East Expo Floor. Though, this wasn’t any ordinary demo of the game and showing off what they had achieved from the full release. Getting the chance to have some one on one time with communications lead Joe Tirado, I was shown the ropes of the basic how to play controls, and what a base would look like after roughly 20 hours of play time.

Once having learned this, I was switched over to what’s being currently added. The first thing that Tirado wanted to show off is that the team is planning on adding in a new jetpack to the game. This will allow players to move through the different biomes within the planet with ease and if timed correctly will stop players from taking any fall damage. Which was good, considering I had died twice from that prior to getting one.

Aside from the new jetpack, Tirado had me dig as deep as I could on the planet that my character was on. There, down at the center of the planet, was a luminescent core. The gravity was beyond belief as the character could now walk on walls and move around the core of the planet to wherever and whatever. When asked about this, Tirado told of how each planet will have a core like this, and it helps push forward a somewhat narrative within the game.

I had asked about if each of the core’s and biomes would differ and how much. Tirado’s response was that the developing team, System Era Softworks, wanted to make sure that everything was different; about how each piece was hand designed by a person and wasn’t a base piece. And how there are no copied textures within it.

Astroneer is currently available and out of Early Access, and has some new additions heading its way. It’s currently available for PC and Xbox One.